Big Ten Countdown: 30 - The King of the Mountain

Well, it's June 1st. We've been counting down since late March and we have but one month to go. The writers here at Corn Nation are holding strong, but are starting to feel the weight of this series add up. Just a year ago, the Big XII meetings were taking place and things like ultimatums were thrown around like the football when Joe Ganz played Kansas State. If Nebraska stays, Texas will stay. If they go to the Big Ten, hmm...

Well, we all know that Nebraska didn't stay and because of that choice, we get to do this cool 100-day series. It continues today with some random thoughts from yours-truly. Now, mind you, I like to be creative and to spice things up. Our new conference is known for it's traveling trophies, so I came up with this idea for a trophy that could be won by any of the Big Ten schools.

It's called, the King of the Mountain.

Growing up, my friends and I would play this game called King of the Mountain. We had a "mountain" (sometimes a tree, a hill, a teeter-totter, a diving board, a log over a pond, playground equipment or whatever). The idea was that if you wanted to be king, you had to push everyone else off. Also, people would want to knock you off so that they could be king.

What if the Big Ten had a trophy with the same idea. School X would have the trophy and whenever they played, they would have to put this trophy on the line. As long as they kept winning, they kept the trophy. If they lost, it would be given to the other team. From that point, that team (school Y) has to defend the trophy against whomever they play. You could also make this trophy a division trophy. The "King of the Legends" trophy and/or the "King of the Leaders". It also might make for a good basketball trophy. The conference is full of football trophies but lacks one good one for basketball. There are more basketball games and might travel a lot more. The winner of the Big Ten basketball tournament would end up taking home the "King of the Mountain" trophy, though.

Or...maybe we just start a "King of the Mountain" trophy and anyone that beats us gets it.  It could end up traveling all across the NCAA and maybe even end up at an FCS school.